Culex scapularis Rondani, 1848

Sforzi, Alessandra & Sommaggio, Daniele, 2021, Catalog of the Diptera types described by Camillo Rondani, Zootaxa 4989 (1), pp. 1-438 : 101

Culex scapularis Rondani, 1848

ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: 1848b: 109.

TYPE LOCALITY: “ Brasile [ Brazil]” ( Rondani 1848b: 63); [vicinity of Rio de Janeiro (Guanabara)] ( Belkin et al. 1971: 19); Belem (Pará), Brazil] ( Papavero 1973: 341, Arnell 1976: 57). See Remarks.

TYPE MATERIAL: 1 specimen, syntype (sex not determinable, very moldy) ( MZUN: Box Coll. entomol. extra-europea, Fam. Tipulidae - Gen. Sciara a Culex ): Culex scapularis Rnd. , Brasile / M. Zool. N° 10866.

CURRENT STATUS: valid species, as Aedes scapularis ( Arnell 1976: 57, Guimarães 1997: 40, Harbach 2018: 117).

REMARKS: Rondani (1848b: 109) described Culex scapularis from just the female sex, without specifying either the number or the sex of the specimens, but giving a single measurement of length, from material collected by V. Ghiliani and received from G. Mussino. Costa (1866: 40) listed a single MZUN specimen numbered “941”. We also found one syntype in this study. Belkin et al. (1971: 19) restricted the type locality to the surroundings of Rio de Janeiro without any justification. Arnell (1976: 57) restricted the type locality to the vicinity of Belem following Papavero (1973: 343). Although Rondani (1848b: 63) only gave the type locality as “ Brasile ”, Papavero (1973: 343) gave a more accurate type locality based on a note in Spinola (1853) that said all specimens collected by Ghiliani in 1846 were collected in Belem, Pará, Brazil.